Diabetes patients are more likely to be hospitalized for low blood sugar than high blood sugar

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, diabetics are facing much lower rates of hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), stroke and heart attack than they did a decade ago.

Yet a new study from researchers at the Yale School of Medicine reports that episodes of extremely low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, are landing diabetics in the hospital too often.

Older adults most at risk

The study included data on nearly 34 million individuals, and researchers specifically wanted to look at diabetic patients who were hospitalized during the 12-year study period between 1999 and 2011.

A total of 279,937 people were hospitalized for hyperglycemia, while 404,467 were hospitalized for hypoglycemia. According to the numbers, the researchers suggest that hypoglycemia rates jumped 11.7 percent in the study period, while hyperglycemia rates dropped by 38.6 percent.

Older adults over the age of 75 had the highest rates of hospitalizations for hypoglycemia.

"Although admission rates for hypoglycemia have declined modestly since 2007, efforts to further reduce these hospitalizations, especially among black and older adults, are urgently needed," the authors wrote in JAMA Internal Medicine.

They concluded that diabetes care needs to take into account the consequences of treating hyperglycemia, which can sometimes result in hypoglycemia.

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